E/CN.4/1998/6/Add.2 page 23 of Muslims, as distinct from assimilation, would be an essential tool in resolving difficulties, such as the occasional opposition between part of the population and Muslims over plans to build mosques and other Muslim religious activities. Nevertheless, the image of Muslims among broad fringes of German public opinion is often negative. This is often attributable to a certain sector of the popular press which seeks sensationalism at any price and often, and almost implicitly, assimilates Muslims with extremists or even terrorists. This injustice towards Muslims tends to make problems more complex. The authorities are responsible for protecting the Muslim minority, for helping to combat this iniquitous portrayal of Muslims and for tackling the manifestations of hatred or intolerance towards them that occasionally marked the early years of this decade. Efforts to combat the ignorance propagated by a certain sector of the popular press and to strengthen education in tolerance could constitute priorities in this sphere. 92. As to other groups and communities in the field of religion and belief and the Church of Scientology, the Special Rapporteur wishes first of all to recall the relevant international law and jurisprudence. 93. In its general comment 22 of 20 July 1993 concerning article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Human Rights Committee stated that the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion is far-reaching and profound. It observed that freedom of thought and freedom of conscience were protected equally with the freedom of religion and belief. The fundamental character of those freedoms was also reflected in the fact that the provision could not be derogated from, even in time of public emergency, as stated in article 4, paragraph 2, of the Covenant. The Committee also emphasized that restrictions on the freedom to manifest religion or belief were permitted only if limitations were prescribed by law and necessary to protect public safety, order, health or morals, or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others, and that they must not be applied in a manner that would vitiate freedom of thought, conscience and religion. The Committee also considered that the “limitations may be applied only for those purposes for which they were prescribed and must be directly related and proportionate to the specific need on which they are predicated. Restrictions may not be imposed for discriminatory purposes or applied in a discriminatory manner”. The Special Rapporteur also wishes to point out that international law provides no legal definition of the concept of religion and that the international human rights instruments make no reference to the concepts of sects or psycho-groups. 94. Against the background of a highly emotional international debate on sects or new religious movements, a debate which is not without interest for all the parties concerned, there is, as the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons have observed, total confusion in which all groups and communities in the field of religion and belief are generally considered to be dangerous and using religion for other ends, whether financial or criminal. This confusion generates a climate of suspicion or even manifest or latent intolerance within society. In this regard, numerous representatives of groups and communities emphasized that the use of the terms “persecution”, “official State policy of discrimination”, “religious apartheid” and any comparison or parallel with Nazism to describe the situation in Germany in the field of religion and belief was “shocking”, “inappropriate”, “false”, “unworthy” and “highly